Teachers social gathering at work

[Notsureifitssomethingornothing]

Hi, I have name changed just in case my previous posts mention my location. I’m not sure if I’m overreacting or not, and I’m not normally the Covid police: I can understand a bit of low level rule bending as things are tough at the moment. However, I have seen a post on Facebook showing a social get together for some of the staff at my dcs school. It is a photo of a finger buffet laid out on a table in a classroom, with a big bowl of crisps, a cheese board with one knife etc and is described as an ‘end of term party’. 7 people are tagged in it, as in x is with y and 6 others.
Would this annoy you/make you cross, or would you just think let them have their fun? I’m classed as a key worker (as is about 50% of parents in my area judging by school attendance) but as I work from home I haven’t sent my dc in. It’s been really tough at home but I thought I was doing the right thing, mainly out of respect for the school staff. The school had already announced they would only be opening to kw+v children prior to Boris closing school because lots of staff members felt unsafe.
Is there legislation regarding this at the moment? I do feel cross but have had issues with the remote learning provision and not sure if my feelings are clouded by already being a bit unhappy with the school.
How would you feel if you were aware of this happening at your dc’s school?
In ‘normal’ times I am very happy with the school and my children are content there. I don’t want to be ‘that parent’ but I have emailed them asking why this went ahead and whether a risk assessment was considered. Just not sure if I’m making a mountain out of it due to skewed perspective with lockdown etc.

@Notsureifitssomethingornothing

It seems like I’m just a bit bitter. Thank you for putting me straight. If this was aibu the vote would be unanimous so I’m going to look at my reasons for getting wound up and try to sort myself out.

Decent plan, OP. I hope you can work out a way to relax some as you sound like you need it as much as the rest of us.

You emailed the school!

How utterly embarrassing! I'd suggest in light of what you have learnt from this tread you send a follow up apologising for your ridiculous reaction.

There are 8 staff members in my year's bubble, we have zero social distancing all day, it wouldn't be possible, it wold really make no difference if we then shared food.
In fact, on a recent training day the head told each year group to organise their own bubble buffet to eat together on our lunch break.
It felt far more hygienic than usual, where I'm sat on a table of 4 year olds accidentally spitting food at my face as they talk with their mouths full.

Oh dear, I've just read that you've actually emailed school about it.

Hopefully the headteacher will use their discretion and keep this complaint from the teaching and other school staff. They really don't need such a petty negative complaint at the end of this half term.

@borntobequiet

It’s not the “end of term”. So either they’re living in a time warp, the picture is out of date, or this is a figment of your imagination.

It's end of term at my school! Where in the country are you if it's not end of term? We broke up yesterday! And it's been fucking hard work!!!

Youarethebestthing - it's half term here. I don't know any of our staff who call half term the end of term personally.

with chairs all round the table

Chairs? Chairs? How very dare they. And all round the table too. It beggars belief.

I’m a teacher and when we were in (just before Xmas) we had a couple of little get togethers in our office for people’s birthdays. It was quite funny that the workplace offered the only possible social venue at the time. We were careful and hopefully this was also the case at your child’s school. Have to say I wouldn’t have put anything on social media though.

It's end of term at my school! Where in the country are you if it's not end of term? We broke up yesterday! And it's been fucking hard work!!!

It’s the end of the half term, not the end of term. I’m a teacher.

I totally get your frustration.

I’m a nurse. I’m sure I would get a similar reaction if we did this. But we’re not. We understand that an outbreak among staff would be terrible for our patients. And surely these staff understand that risk they’re then sharing with their students?!

No shared food (we’ve had to turn away donations of whole cakes etc) all to remain 2m in the staff room.
And yes that is despite perhaps being stood next to each other perhaps in very close contact with each other with a patient.

I don’t understand the ‘bubble’ excuse in regards teachers. They are adults and should be social distancing, surely.
It’s the same way childcare bubbles aren't allowed to be used to socialise. You don’t automatically get Covid being in contact, you may get it in a 20 minute exposure but not a 5 minute one, thus reducing the time spent with other people is what they should be doing.

At the end of term we have a buffet. So that would be a ‘large number of items’. But we only eat them in the staff room in our time slot or back in our classroom with our bubble colleagues. We are allowed to eat OP! The only difference at the end of term is that someone might have organised special food for everyone to eat as a thank you for everyone’s hard work. No rules broken, social distancing still maintained between bubbles, just nicer food.

We are all finding lockdown difficult and I think a lot of us are losing perspective.

Its some colleagues working in close proximity sharing some food - just as they may well have done at lunch with the children present too.

There are 10 adults in my class bubble. This week at least 4 of us were spat on by the same child. We changed children side by side, we physically supported children side by side, we took turns cleaning the children's toilets as the cleaners don't come in during the day any more. It's going to make fuck all difference if we eat biscuits out of the same tub.

You'll be known as 'that' parent now and forever spoken about!!

No shared food (we’ve had to turn away donations of whole cakes etc) all to remain 2m in the staff room.

Maybe I'm being dense here - but why can't someone cut the cake and leave it for others to help themselves?

Yes they may be in a bubble together, but I didn’t think that made it ok to have a social and be putting their hands in the same food bowl

It’s Ok, though, that they’re in small rooms together with children as well? Only when it’s not in the name of education it’s a problem?

What is poor judgement is a parents emailing a ludicrous complaint to an overstretched school about petty and quite frankly ridiculous nonsense. Not that I believe a word of your op.

They are adults and should be social distancing, surely.

But the op doesn't know what happened. They saw a picture of some food that may or may not have been shared with a vague comment underneath it iirr.

As already said, we are in year group bubbles.
But we all socially distance, and wear masks in communal,area including our staff spaces, if not eating.

And OP...you can take your goady fucking post and fuck right off. Everyone knows that it's been completely impossible to social distance in primary schools!! We are teaching in 'bubbles' (hahahaha) with no PPE and (in my case anyway!!) upwards of 24 children everyday in a room that has practically no ventilation. So yeah...it's hardly Covid secure now is it? I honestly don't think helping myself to a few crisps out of a bowl, and slicing a lump of cheese using a knife that a colleague (who has probably washed her hands in excess of 25 times a day!) is going be the tipping point in infecting me 🤷‍♀️

So as I said, do fuck off, there's a love 👍

From a different perspective, my school wouldn’t allow this. We are expected to socially distance and not socialise at the moment.

I wonder if it was a memory that was shared rather then a current post. You can do that on Facebook without showing the original post details/date etc.

Tbh I should imagine the teachers will be pissed off at you for raising it because now someone monitoring the mail box over half term will have to do some sort of investigation, which will be a complete pita for them.

@DBML

Damn phone -

I do not know any teacher who calls this week ‘end of term’.

We do...ever since our LEA moved to 6 Terms. We now have Term 1,2 3,4,5 and 6 🤷‍♀️

@Notsureifitssomethingornothing

Not a staff room table. It’s very interesting to get perspectives though. I did suspect that I might be over reacting about it. I’m working evenings and weekends so I can help my dc during the day. My office is closed as we’re working from home but when we were planning to go back a few months ago we had to do lots of risk assessments and if we were doing any ‘events’ (charity emergency covid support) we had to do lots of risk assessments and justify why it needed to be in person and not remotely. I just assumed it was the same for most workplaces.

How do you know they didn't do a risk assessment? Perhaps they had a planning meeting for the next half term, they don't even know if they will be having all the kids in, and as a treat the Head arranged some bits for them to eat to end the meeting.

Just leave them to it, they are all together day in day out so what harm do you think it is going to do?

Can't believe you emailed them, you were so rude.

@OverTheRainbow88

From a different perspective, my school wouldn’t allow this. We are expected to socially distance and not socialise at the moment.

Again, though - where in the Op does it say that the teachers and other school staff were not socially distanced? The OP won't even know,exactly how many staff were there, how many in the space at same time, where they 'sat' to eat, how distanced they were, whether they used utensils to 'share' the food, etc.

Is there legislation regarding this at the moment?

Photos of food on a table?

No, that's still allowed.